Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Architecture Australia

Our cities and communities are facing a great transformation through projected population increases, which will directly result in greater densities. This critical issue of increased population and density is now being overlaid by the effects of climate change. As the climate has changed dramatically over the last three years, there is an urgency to this challenge, particularly if the rate of change continues as predicted. A consistent message in my previous Foreword columns has been a call for the profession to respond by bringing to bear the potency of design. Cities are inherently complex and somewhat unmanageable. However, this is why the individual project is such an agent for change, both in the physical fabric of our cities and in the sensibilities and vision of those charged with their development.…

Housing should be seen as a process and not as a product. — Balkrishna Doshi In a recent Volume essay, Charles Landry argued that many of today’s key urban failings are due to citizens living 3.0 lifestyles while the city around them is designed and operating for a 1.0 world.1 In other words, culture, technology and society have advanced, yet many of our architectural and urban models, including building management and approaches to finance, have not. One sector where the misalignment is acutely felt is housing. Current best-practice housing approaches epitomize the modernist ideals of efficiency, democracy and control. However, these grand ambitions are undermined by the self-serving interests of individuals in market housing, facilitated through body corporates and the planning application appeal processes, and by a focus on minimizing…

Estia House by Candalepas Associates is a group home – a new model of care facility where people with intellectual and physical disabilities live together in a permanent environment. Group homes are increasing in favour over short-term respite care, due in part to the independence and sense of worth fostered in residents. People not normally able to live alone can create their own sense of home, live among constant neighbours and flourish within a system of socially inclusive care that prioritizes participation and self-sufficiency. Group homes provide each resident with their own room, furnished with their belongings. Everyone moves around the house as they please and social interaction is encouraged by gathering for meals and activities. The care is passive and residents choose how they fill their time with activities…

Let me take you to Darwin. For most readers, this will conjure something exotic in the mind, somewhere between the high-vis population of a mine site and the delights of tropical Singapore. Darwin is “up there,” inhabited by a bunch of crocodiles who engage in hand-to-jaw combat with the frequently bearded and often just as fierce fisherfolk. The myths of the north are almost as playfully combative as the front pages of the NT News. As well perhaps they should be, but this mostly imagined reputation belies the importance of Australia’s northernmost capital city. Darwin maintains a strategic military presence in the regional geopolitical positioning of Australia, the influence and importance of which continue to this day. With a strong military presence comes a large military population of transient service…

Coming on seventy years ago my grandparents had a home constructed on what was then the outskirts of an Australian city. Supported by postwar subsidies for returned soldiers, this young working-class couple purchased plans for a contemporary home from a magazine and contracted a local builder. “A Boyd,” as Irene was fond of noting. With some minor modifications in response to material availability and a good deal of weekend sweat equity on Harry’s part, they constructed a weatherboard family home on a double block with a small orchard, vegetable patches, flowerbeds, a workshop and the inevitable private car. Irene and Harry moved with their three boys from a small cottage brimming with extended family to their “Australian Dream.” Two more children arrived and the golden ash saplings dropped their leaves…

Cohousing is defined by the Cohousing Association of the United States as “an intentional community of private homes clustered around shared space” – where the dwellings themselves are much the same as any other and the shared space constitutes anything from a common room to a kitchen, laundry or recreational area. Less obvious in this description is the essential ingredient – intent. That which turns a simple group of dwellings into cohousing is the desire to share not only part of your physical space but part of your daily activities. Sharing may encompass simple things, such as tools and lawnmowers, or more complex things, such as caring for the young and elderly. Often an important element involves meals – it is not uncommon for cohousing projects to host weekly dinners…

This future-focused issue of Architecture Australia is guest-edited by a team from Monash University, led by Shane Murray and Alysia Bennett. Shane and Alysia have worked with their Monash University colleagues Naomi Stead, Nicole Kalms and Catherine Murphy (as advisers) to consider emerging directions in Australian housing. With the overarching theme of “Housing Diversity” the team has considered the significant challenges facing Australia’s housing sector. The renovation of the Australian suburbs is a topic that the Department of Architecture at Monash University has been addressing in teaching, research and advocacy over many years. Past issues of Architecture Australia that have focused on housing include the May/June 2011 “Housing Futures” issue, which included an essay by Shane Murray and Lee-Anne Khor exploring infill redevelopment, and the May/June 2007 issue, which presented…

The great Australian dream has long had two components – home ownership and the freestanding dwelling in the suburbs. Despite the hype surrounding the densification of Australian cities, the suburban home is still the predominant house form. In addition, Australian houses have been distinguished for much of this century by being the largest in the world. Interestingly, though, this mantle has now shifted elsewhere. The size of the Australian home peaked in 2009 at 247 square metres. The United States now has the biggest houses in the world – at 249 square metres – with Canada coming a fair way behind at 181 square metres and Denmark with 137 square metres.1 There has been no systematic analysis as to why this change is occurring. It would be reassuring to see…

The RVIA Small Homes Service (SHS), established in 1947 with Robin Boyd as its first director, sought to popularize the modern home and make it available to a broad public. Catering to the rapidly expanding suburbs of the postwar boom, a time when building materials were scarce and the size of homes was prescribed, the SHS showed how good design could creatively overcome these constraints. Boyd set up the SHS within the building of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria at 238 Flinders Street, Melbourne, where he managed a small team of architects and draftspeople. Each week, they would produce a design for a modern home, which would be published in The Agenewspaper alongside a column by Boyd advocating for modern design and the new ways of living it enabled.…

For the past decade Monash University’s Department of Architecture has been researching new models of dwelling provision to better meet the increasingly complex needs of the Australian housing market. The underlying intention of much of this research is to develop design contributions toward a range of needs that our housing system has failed to address, such as a diversification of household makeup, a longer life expectancy, an increasing desire to age in place and pressures caused by population growth. In Australia there are approximately 200,000 new dwellings required for social housing tenants1 and, as with the UK, Europe and the US, housing unaffordability and rates of housing stress are reaching critical levels. Local commentators note “the collective angst the country is experiencing over the future of home ownership and long-term…

A pattern that once graced the most luxurious palaces and manor homes is making a major comeback. Premium Floors has introduced Quick-Step’s new timber range Intenso: real wood in a beautiful herringbone design, handcrafted in five luxurious colours. The floors are prefinished with the highest quality European lacquer and feature Quick-Step’s signature durability warranty. Intenso gives projects a timeless look that conveys class and elegance, but works just as well in a contemporary setting. Unlike traditional, glued-down chevron flooring, the Quick-Step Intenso range comes in a plank format and is installed with the Uniclic® system. This ensures the very strongest connection and much faster plank installation. Moreover, this range of premium engineered timber flooring comes prefinished: sanded, sealed and ready to click or glue into place. After the installation is…